Shooter

Galaxy Game, the very first commercial video game, is a shooter.

A shooter is a blanket genre of video game where the player controls a character that can shoot projectiles. Because this definition is so broad, the genre is typically divided into several sub-genres like:

Sub-genre	Description	Examples
First-person shooter	The game is seen through the eyes of the character who shoots at opponents.	Doom, Half-Life
Fixed shooter	The character is confined to a limited area, usually on a single screen.	Space Invaders, Centipede
Platform shooter	The character runs along platforms while shooting.	Ghosts 'N Goblins, Contra
Rail shooter	The player shoots at targets while moving along a pre-set course.	Star Wars (1983), Space Harrier
Scrolling shooter	The character moves across a large area as the background scrolls behind them.	Defender, Xevious

Although light gun video games involve shooting, they don't fall into this definition of a shooter because the player's character doesn't fire a projectile. Instead, it uses something called a hitscan.

Links